[p4] p4tar/p4untar

[Shawn Hladky]

I stumbled across this utility a while back.  It's a .Net windows app, that
does the same thing in concept, but it's output is embeded in XML instead of
a tar.  I only played with it for a little while, and it seemed to be a
work-in-progress.

http://code.google.com/p/p4shelf/


On 4/26/07, Jay Glanville <Jay.Glanville at naturalconvergence.com> wrote:
>
> I had originally thought of porting p4tar/p4untar to python and using
> the built-in zip support.  Thus, replacing the dependencies on perl, tar
> and other UNIX tools with simply python.
>
> If I did this, I would also have changed the archive's structure.  For
> example, using the file's depot path as the path inside the archive
> (currently, all files get renamed and placed into a flat file space in
> the tar).  I also would use the zip's comments to store the metadata for
> the archived files (this includes version numbers and other things).
>
> Unfortunately, the zip support in python doesn't support zip comments.
> Thus, the only way that I can store metadata is how the current
> implementation does it: makes a text file in the root directory.  This
> is the one thing that's holding me back.
>
> The major advantage to using a zip with hierarchical files is that
> recipients who don't have p4tar/p4untar can still read the contents of
> the zip.  Currently, when unarchiving the tar, the recipient needs to
> interpret the content (read the metadata file to determine which file is
> which, etc).
>
> JDG
>
> ---
> Jay Dickon Glanville
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: perforce-user-bounces at perforce.com
> > [mailto:perforce-user-bounces at perforce.com] On Behalf Of Robert Cowham
> > Sent: April 26, 2007 8:16 AM
> > To: 'Jeff Grills'; 'Nikhil Singhal'
> > Cc: perforce-user at perforce.com
> > Subject: Re: [p4] p4tar/p4untar
> >
> >
> > A python version of the tools could use the built in zip library. In
> > addition, py2exe could be used to provide a straight forward Windows
> > precompiled version with no extra dependencies on python etc.
> >
> > I just happen to know about these things in Python, but no
> > doubt something
> > similar could be done with Perl.
> >
> > Robert
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: perforce-user-bounces at perforce.com
> > > [mailto:perforce-user-bounces at perforce.com] On Behalf Of Jeff Grills
> > > Sent: 25 April 2007 16:40
> > > To: 'Nikhil Singhal'
> > > Cc: perforce-user at perforce.com
> > > Subject: Re: [p4] p4tar/p4untar
> > >
> > > Oh, I didn't take your post as a gripe at all.  I'm glad that
> > > you, and many others it seems, have benefited from these
> > > utilities.  I believe software should be obvious, easy to
> > > use, and (when possible) hard to misuse.  The dependencies
> > > that p4tar/p4untar have on external utilities that aren't
> > > commonly installed on Windows platforms make those tools much
> > > harder to use on Windows than I'd like, and I fully
> > > understand that Windows is a very popular development and
> > > deployment platform.  I've developed on and shipped several
> > > commercial products for Windows over the past 12 years.
> > >
> > > My solicitation for replacement ideas was motivated only by a
> > > desire to improve these utilities for everyone, myself
> > > included.  And my request still stands - if anyone has ideas,
> > > I'd really like to hear them.
> > >
> > > And if support is listening (and of course they are), I
> > > wouldn't mind at all if this functionality made its way into
> > > p4/p4win/p4v as a native perforce capability and these
> > > utilities became obsolete.  I'd love to be able to
> > > right-click a changelist in one of the GUI clients and select
> > > a menu entry for "Archive changelist to file."  Wouldn't that
> > > be useful?
> > >
> > > j
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> >
>
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